Integrating a variety of direct marketing media into a single marketing effort with powerful direct response copy can have a dramatic effect on response. Let me show you how I used a fully integrated campaign to increase response more than five-fold.

Marketing challenge

FamilyLife Canada is a nonprofit Christian organization dedicated to providing married couples and parents with tools to improve their marriages and homelife. This is done through conferences, seminars, online resources and more.

Since 1978, more than 60,000 people have attended their flagship Weekend to Remember marriage conferences. But in the past 2 to 3 years, attendance stagnated. Conferences rarely topped 150 attendees.

In 2010, with a very special Weekend to Remember event planned for the luxurious Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta—an idyllic romantic location— FamilyLife Canada wanted to expand attendance. This event would also feature performances by singer/songwriter Steve Bell.

FamilyLife Canada asked me to help recruit more attendees.

Creative strategy and tactics

I had to overcome several objections that prospects for these conferences typically have.

First, we needed to fend off skepticism and answer questions like “Is this really for me? Can this really help my marriage?” 

Second, it was critical to speak to husbands in particular, as they are often the most resistant. The campaign would have to sell the many advantages of a trip to Banff, beyond the seminar’s content.

To accomplish this, my team developed a fully integrated campaign of email, targeted landing pages, direct mail and social media.

We began with a 5-part email series to inform and persuade prospects to register.

Copy highlighted success stories of couples whose lives and marriages had been transformed by Weekend to Remember, using video testimonials featured in the emails and on landing pages. Emails also outlined premium hotel services and outdoor activities available at the luxurious location.

Part of the offer included an opportunity for prospects to earn free registration by bringing friends. That worked very well.

The other media were integrated into this schedule to support the email campaign and drive online response.

Response-exploding results

Response was so overwhelming that FamilyLife Canada’s block of rooms was completely sold out. They had to make arrangements at neighboring hotels and provide shuttle buses to get everyone to the conference.

In all, more than 950 people attended Weekend to Remember in Banff—increasing participation by more than 533%!

When creating a landing page, microsite or website, I’ll often want to include some strategic download options.

If you are including direct downloads on your site, what you do with the names of your downloadable files is important to your SEO.

Make sure that you add your primary keywords to the file name as well as to the directory it’s in.

Doing so will make your URL, domain name and file name all relevant to your keyword-rich content—giving you an additional SEO boost.

But remember, SEO is constantly changing. It is critical that you stay on top of these changes to make it as easy as possible for web users to find the value that your site has to offer.

In recent issues, we’ve been talking about the power of video to supercharge your response. But video alone is not enough.

The truth is nobody really wants to see another video. They can already go look at 120 million of them on YouTube right now.

No, the key to getting people to view your video is using the right words to lead them there.

You must use power words to create curiosity and tease your prospects into viewing your video.

Here are examples of the copy I used to drive prospects to videos for two of my clients.

The first is for a video targeted to the Christian community. We created a dozen banner ads that teased viewers and got them excited about the video before they clicked through.

Take a look at the copy:

I was arrested for Christ. Arthur Blessitt wanted to share the love of Jesus with the world…so he walked 38,102 miles with a 12-foot wooden cross on his shoulders…

But he was shot at…persecuted…and went to jail 24 times for it.

40 years, 315 countries and 7 continents later, he shares his powerful, inspiring journey on a new video.

Here’s a snippet of the copy we used to entice prospects to view a short online video on an investment landing page…

T. Boone Pickens’ $58 million natural gas plan could make you 545% richer.

Learn how Pickens bet on one natural gas stock that could turn $3,000 into $19,350 by this time next year. The billionaire oilman has invested $58 million of his own money in natural gas.

Follow Pickens’ lead with my #1 Alternative Energy Pick for 2010. This video shows you how.

So if you have a video on your site and aren’t getting the viewers you thought you’d get, it could be your copy—or lack of it.

Marketers use the term “autoresponder series” a few different ways. You may also have heard it called a conversion series, retention series or renewal series.

Here is an interesting recent test that demonstrates how we as marketers need to be constantly rethinking how we use the various channels available to us.

The test involved a Google Adwords campaign intended to build business.

Over an 8-day period, prospects responding to the campaign were involved in a 50/50 split-test.

Method A: Half of the group was sent to a landing page featuring a traditional direct response sales letter.

Method B: The other half were driven to an opt-in page. After opting in, prospects received a series of autoresponder emails that were designed to drive prospects back to the very same landing page over a period of time.

At first, the test results seemed to show that the winner would be method A, the direct-to-sales-letter option. In fact, on the first day of the test, it was outperforming the autoresponder emails by 4 to 1 in terms of visitor value.

But then an interesting thing happened. Over the 8 days of the test, the response to the email series began to grow. By the fourth day, it was outpulling the sales page.

By the end of the test period, A beat B by an incredible 91%. Better still, because the prospects opted-in with method B, there was an opportunity to build an ongoing relationship that could deliver additional sales weeks or months down the line.

Direct mail’s greatest danger is not the advent of electronic media. As you saw in the article above, direct mail in an online world works—and it works well.

No, direct mail’s greatest danger is the government-protected monopoly status of the United States Postal Service (USPS). This creates bureaucratic inefficiencies and the ever-increasing price hikes.

And now, using an “escape clause” in the exigent policy, the post office has all but ignored its promise not to raise postage rates this year by calling for an average 5.6% raise (almost double the inflation rate) that would go into effect on January 2, 2011.

As direct mailers, that hurts us all. Of the mail delivered by the USPS in 2009, 150 billion pieces were from businesses. But instead of treating business mailers like loyal customers, the USPS wants to punish us with again higher prices…as though we were at fault for its debts.

In reality, it is bulk mail that is keeping the post office afloat. But each new increase cuts into your business’s ability to make a profit, increases your cost per sale, reduces job creation and discourages entrepreneurship.

That’s why I want to encourage you to write your congressmen and demand that they not raise rates at the beginning of 2011. The fact is, your voice counts.

Already, the Affordable Mail Alliance (AffordableMailAlliance.org), a coalition of more than 700 mailers, has filed a motion with the postal commission against the increase, and your letters will put additional pressure on Congress to vote against a rate increase.